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The study of an agriculture-based economy such as ancient Egypt's presents two possible avenues of research: either the investigation of the labor force itself, or of the establishments around which economic activity revolved. The present study will follow the latter course by examining the evolution of the pr šnʿ. Defining the structure and function of this institution will in turn contribute to our understanding of the different groups that were employed therein. But direct study of such groups will be undertaken only within the parameters of the study of this institution.

Economic institutions are among the least understood components of Egyptian society, especially in earlier times. Our knowledge has been improved in recent years with the publication of the Abusir archives1 documenting the daily economic activities of the mortuary temples of fifth Dynasty kings;2 other resources, such as the unpublished Gebelein papyri, could yield a considerable amount of information pertaining to similar activities in private estates (the prw-ḏt).3 However, we still do not know some of the basics of economic organization.

The foremost labor establishment in the Old Kingdom was the pr šnʿ.4 The more common translations of "Arbeitshaus," [LÄ I.377] or "storehouse" [Gardiner, JEA 21 (1935), p. 142] present an incomplete picture of the function of this institution. Although storerooms for several different products were part of the pr šnʿ,5 it would be too simplistic to characterize it exclusively in those terms.6 For instance, cultivable lands (Ꜣḫt) were also part of it,7 as were ḥwt-type estates.8 The word also appears with the determinative for a collective,9 indicating a designation for a group of individuals. The pr šnʿ is also believed to have housed pyramid builders.10 In the New Kingdom the word appears simply as šnʿ, or more commonly in the plural šnʿw, and is believed to represent workshops where slaves and prisoners of war were put to work.11

There has not yet appeared a comprehensive study on the domains of the pr šnʿ type, although there is abundant evidence for them in a chronologically wide range of texts. The subject does not receive separate treatment, but is often incorporated into studies on land management and manual labor.

Both the pr šnʿ and the pr-ḏt are mentioned in various sections of Jacques Pirenne's Histoire des Institutions et du Droit privé de l'ancienne égypte, vol. II. He does not, however, discuss them in a dedicated chapter. Published in 1934, this work is, as its title suggests, primarily concerned with legal aspects of ancient Egyptian society. It should be consulted in conjunction with more recent contributions to the topic, which Pirenne could not have incorporated into his study. It remains an important work even though some of Pirenne's conclusions are not always warranted by our current understanding of the facts.

The study on the names of domains in the Old Kingdom by Helen Jacquet-Gordon (Les noms des domaines funéraires sous l'Ancien Empire, BdÉ 34) serves as a good introduction to the understanding of funerary domains and their terminology (pp. 3-56, especially 3-14 and 40-53.) Although it is essentially in catalogue form, the material receives comprehensive analysis.

Abdel el-Mohsen Bakir includes a brief overview of the pr šnʿ as a labor institution in Slavery in Pharaonic Egypt (SASAE. Cahier no. 18, pp. 41-47). More recent discussions of the pr šnʿ are found in the Lexikon der Ägyptologie, included within entries for 'Arbeiter' [LÄ I.371,] 'Arbeitshaus' [LÄ I, 377,] 'Domänen' [LÄ I.1118,] and 'Tempelpersonal' [LÄ VI.392]. It should be noted that all but one or two articles containing pr šnʿ were written by W. Helck; this tends to limit the discussion to a single point of view, whereas contributions by various scholars would have been more desirable. The resulting articles, therefore, contain very similar, sometimes identical, information.

The vast majority of the more recent scholarship on the study of labor organization, and socio-economic problems in general, comes from Christopher J. Eyre, mostly in the form of articles.12 His treatment of the subject is quite broad and serves as an excellent overview of previously published works. He sets forth all the relevant issues, but, given the nature of his contribution (in article form), he limits himself to but a general assessment of the many questions. In both of his long articles he nevertheless succeeds in synthesizing vast amounts of data on the given topic and his conclusions are focused and reliable. However, in the articles cited above, the discussion is limited almost exclusively to Old Kingdom sources.

By contrast, the principal aim of the present study is to trace the evolution of the pr sn(. Prior to undertaking such an investigation, a brief etymological analysis is required, given that the meaning of the term šnʿ itself is poorly understood. There is sufficient evidence spanning over three millennia (the word survives into Coptic as Shenau meaning simply "market." [Crum 573b]) to justify such an attempt. By the Middle Kingdom the compound word pr šnʿ had fallen into disuse, replaced simply by šnʿ.13 I will attempt to demonstrate that this change was not due to coincidence, but to a fundamental mutation of the character and role of that establishment, which seems to originate in the reorganization of the economy of Egypt. Certain components of the earlier pr šnʿ later emerge under the name of šnʿ as important centers in the religious and economic life of the New Kingdom and remain so well into the Roman domination. The present study seeks to investigate the process of, and the contributing factors to, the change of status of the pr šnʿ from the Old Kingdom through the First Intermediate Period and also to examine the subsequent stages of its evolution across the remaining periods of Egyptian history.

What was a pr šnʿ in the Old Kingdom? Rainer Stadelmann considers the settlements of pyramid construction crews to have been prw šnʿ and distinguishes them from the pyramid towns which were eventually established for the maintenance of the dead king's cult.14 His understanding would limit the activities of a given pr šnʿ to the duration of a specific construction project. It seems unlikely that it was exclusively associated with pyramid-building or any similar undertaking; in such a case it would be difficult to explain the many examples of the pr šnʿ which do not appear in such contexts. The pr šnʿ seems to have had a wider and a more permanent economic role, designed to meet the daily subsistence requirements of projects such as pyramid-building, or the maintenance of a king's mortuary temple; for this purpose it seems either to have used its own lands, or to have processed, stored, and redistributed various staple goods (see footnote ). Evidence for the pr šnʿ as a processing center comes from the Old Kingdom, where overseers of the pr šnʿ supervise brewing and weaving;15 in his inscription16 Peh9ernefer claims the title of 'overseer of the brewers of the Upper and Lower Egyptian pwr šnʿ.' Operations such as brewing and weaving, in addition to the agricultural work, required state control of a massive work force and bureaucracy. The principal groups of workers employed at the pr šnʿ were part of the so-called mrt-class.17 They operated under a bureaucracy which took great care to record their activities, to judge from the titles of their supervising officials.18 In the New Kingdom bakers and brewers remain part of the šnʿ,19 and in the Late Period the šnʿ was used for the preparation of the daily temple offerings and served as the starting point of the daily ritual.20

Interestingly, almost identical activities can be observed within private estates (the prw-ḏt): from the Middle Kingdom tomb of Khnumhotep at Beni Hassan21 two overseers supervise the ongoing brewing and weaving activities; the entire scene is localized in the pr-ḏt estate of the tomb owner, since the same register also includes the "steward of the estate" (ỉmy-rꜢ-pr ḏt). In the Old Kingdom, such private holdings appear to be an extension of the pr šnʿ and maybe even part of its extended estate (its pr?)22 Another common feature between the state and private estates was the work force. The mrt-class seems to have been the predominant labor group and is widely attested in both prw šnʿ and prw ḏt across Egypt (from Coptos to Dakhleh to the Fayyum and the western Delta); this pattern of distribution of estates in turn indicates a dependence of the state economy upon those two types of domains.

I would like to propose the following evolution of the establishment of the pr šnʿ through the stages of Egyptian history, from its early dominance of economic activity in Egypt to its renewed, but just as central, role within the system of the New Kingdom and later. The earliest mention of the pr šnʿ comes from a perfectly preserved seal dated to the second Dynasty.23 It belonged to prince Per-neb from the reign of either ḥetep-shekhemwy or his successor Neb-Ra( and was (probably) used to seal receipts of cloth (šsr)24 and metal (ḏḥ 'lead') brought to the Lower Egyptian pr šnʿ. The fact that the seal of the pr šnʿ bears the name of the king's son indicates a close association between the palace and that institution from very early on. It is in the Old Kingdom that the bulk of mentions are attested: from royal decrees,25 inscriptions in private tombs,26 and titles.27 It should be added that the word sn( also occurs by itself in the Old Kingdom. In the north-west side of the mastaba of Mereruka at Saqqara, five chambers are identified as sn(,28 one for each phyle.29 The use of the word sn( would become the norm starting in the Middle Kingdom. The pr šnʿ consisted of land holdings30 and domains of the ḥwt-type.31 The former appear to be endowed by the king on behalf of various officials (in URK I, 144,7-145,3, a tomb owner states that he was the overseer of an estate with land extending over 203 arourae which his Majesty had given him), thus creating new local estates32 throughout the country. The organization of these privately managed estates, the prw-ḏt, reflected that of their national counterpart, the pr šnʿ, and the same class of individuals (the mrt) filled up their personnel ranks in the Old Kingdom.

According to Janssen's model for (primarily) the economy of the New Kingdom33 there appear two principal spheres: 1) a local subsistence economy and 2) a nation-wide redistribution system through which the government supplied its various employees with the surplus. This relationship between local and state-wide economic spheres may even apply to earlier periods of Egyptian history. In the Old Kingdom, the local estates (first sphere), almost all of which seem to be endowed by the state,34 most likely transferred their surplus for processing and storage at the pr šnʿ (second sphere), which was under palace control as early as the second Dynasty. If this indeed were the case, it should not be interpreted as taxation per se, but simply as a centralization of the income of the various components (the prw-ḏt) of the pr šnʿ, which in the Old Kingdom functioned as a vast estate with local subsidiaries, processing centers and storage magazines. It is important to note that, based on our present knowledge, religious centers were not yet involved in economic activity.

Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, the exclusion of the non-mortuary temples from the economic sphere begins to disappear. It appears that prior to the fifth Dynasty the central government neither subsidized nor controlled local cults.35 Inhabitants of individual towns were responsible for the celebration of festivals and for supplying the provisions and material necessary for the maintenance of the cult.36 By the sixth Dynasty we begin to encounter evidence, in the form of the Coptite royal proclamations, which appears to suggest that the state was beginning to create economic hubs at the major local cult centers, and expanding them into estates endowed with their own land, workers, and bureaucracy. It appears that the state was transferring the institution of the pr šnʿ and its administration from the palace over to the temples. This does not translate into a privatization of the economy and subsequent loss of state control. In these initial stages there are glimpses of what is to become the temple-based economy of the New Kingdom, during which the temples and their estates remained an integral part of the government. The Old Kingdom evidence points to the temple of Min at Coptos as one such newly created economic zone. The temple managed its own lands, maintained groups of workers, granaries, and so forth. In fact, it had become a pr sn(, a term which appears, more than once, in association with that temple. In addition, successive Dynasty VI rulers protected the property and personnel of Min by issuing several royal decrees, copies of which were prominently displayed on the temple grounds. The main theme which emerges from these royal documents is the exemption granted to the temple priests and laborers from performing work of any kind outside the temple. Through such measures, the palace insured that the economic activities of the temple would not be disrupted in any way. The decrees established the temple as the new pr šnʿ, still under state jurisdiction,37 but outside the realm of direct control by the palace (pr ʿꜢ). Soon after separating from the pr ʿꜢ, the "Great Household" of the king, the pr šnʿ became known simply as šnʿ. The change in the designation of this institution seems to have been the result of the transfer of economic responsibilities from the palace proper (which controlled the pr šnʿ) to the temple. This is to become the preferred system in the New Kingdom: a temple-based economic activity still controlled by the state by virtue of the temple's status as a branch of the government. By this time the pr šnʿ survives only in its form of šnʿ, which seems to designate both the institution and the physical space consisting of storage and processing facilities within the temple. Some institutions were called šnʿ wʿb38 since they were entrusted with the preparation of the daily food offerings for the temple services. This type of šnʿ is found at Karnak in the Psammuthis and Achoris structure, located on the south side of the sacred lake. This building called šnʿʿꜢ wʿb of Amun was believed to have been a "storehouse and fowl-yard;"39 but Claude Traunecker suggested that in addition to its role as a storehouse it was the departure point for the morning and evening rituals.40 The simple šnʿ had evolved into the šnʿ wʿb in the New Kingdom, and by Dynasty 29 it served as a cultic center within the temple, equipped with its own chapels and magazines.41 A similar role for the sn( is also found at Edfu.42 Furthermore, a small stela dated to the emperor Tiberius, rededicating sacred magazines in the south-west part of Karnak for the purposes of depositing the daily divine offerings, seems to corroborate Traunecker's view.43

To summarize, the pr sn( appears to have been a complex, multi-branch economic entity originally controlled by the palace itself; it managed its own lands and redistribution centers, and processed the income derived from its satellite holdings, the prw-ḏt. By the end of the Old Kingdom responsibilities of land management and labor organization were transferred to the temples, which, by the New Kingdom, had become the primary economic centers with practices almost identical to the pr šnʿ. Although I cannot here go into details about its contents it is fair to say that P. Wilbour A, an economic document from the New Kingdom, tells us that temple land holdings fell into two distinct categories: land which the temple cultivated using its own personnel and land in outlying areas cultivated by individual tenants.44 This type of land management almost mirrors the one found in the Old Kingdom, when the pr šnʿ was the principal landholder and the pr-dt estates acted as its subsidiary holdings.

In conclusion, it appears that the evolution and transformation of the Old Kingdom institution of the pr šnʿ into the later šnʿ paralleled the process of transference of economic activity in the Old Kingdom from the palace to the temple. The reality of the temple-based economy of the New Kingdom may originate in the late Old Kingdom, when the Great Household of the king relinquished active control of the economy in favor of the temples.

*In accordance with the rules of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of the University of Chicago this dissertation proposal was approved by the dissertation committee and successfully defended at a public hearing. The members of the committee are:

Robert K. Ritner (chair)

Peter F. Dorman

Janet H. Johnson

This document was published on-line for the first time on 30 November 1999, courtesy of the Oriental Institute Research Archives. The only changes from the version approved by the Faculty of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations include minor editorial corrections, normalization of the typographical presentation of ancient names, and some small changes to accommodate the HTML encoding. HTML encoding was done by Charles E. Jones. [Return to text]

Goedicke, Hans. "Cult-Temple and 'State' during the Old Kingdom in Egypt" in Edward Lipinski (ed.), State and temple economy in the ancient Near East: proceedings of the international conference organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven from the 10th to the 14th of April 1978, OLA 5, pp. 113-131. Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek, 1979.

Janssen, Jac J. "The Role of the Temple in the Egyptian Economy of the New Kingdom" in Edward Lipinski (ed.), State and temple economy in the ancient Near East: proceedings of the international conference organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven from the 10th to the 14th of April 1978, OLA 6, pp. 505-515. Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek, 1979.

Lipinski, Edward. State and temple economy in the ancient Near East: proceedings of the international conference organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven from the 10th to the 14th of April 1978, OLA 5-6. Leuven: Departement Oriëntalistiek, 1979.

Loprieno, Antonio. "Slaves," in Sergio Donadoni (ed.) The Egyptians. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1997.